Trump Ally Peter Navarro Prepares Surprise Witnesses for Contempt Trial

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro is attempting to call several surprise witnesses—including himself—to testify as he defends himself from contempt of Congress charges stemming from his alleged role in the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro, a prominent ally of former President Donald Trump and one of Trump's top supporters in his post-White House career, has battled the charges since early June, when he was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena requiring his testimony—along with a number of documents related to the riots—from the House select committee investigating the January 6 breach of the Capitol.

In legal documents, Navarro—like others facing charges for their refusal to comply with subpoenas relating to January 6—has attempted to invoke the right of executive privilege for work he'd conducted under the former president during his time in office, a right legal scholars, members of Congress, and President Joe Biden have claimed he is not entitled to.

Navarro, however, has sought to take the battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, responding to Biden shortly after he was denied executive privilege in a March decision that "Mr. Biden is not the president I worked for. Donald Trump is."

"It is fanciful and dangerous to assert that a sitting president can revoke the Executive Privilege of his predecessor," Navarro wrote in an email to the Biden White House at the time. "See you at the Supreme Court."

Newsweek has contacted Navarro requesting comment.

In court documents filed Thursday, Navarro—who is representing himself in the case—named several witnesses whose testimony he hoped would support his claims, including current Trump spokeswoman Elizabeth Harrington, former White House counsel Jonathan Su, attorneys for both the House of Representatives and the January 6 select committee, onetime Trump campaign official Justin Clark, and FBI special agent Walter Giardina.

Navarro also requested testimony from two unnamed individuals he claimed would contradict House protocols in issuing a subpoena against him, and would verify claims Trump instructed Navarro to invoke executive privilege on his behalf.

Navarro is also expected to introduce a number of documents into evidence stemming from his time assisting with the coordination of the United States' response to the COVID-19 pandemic, where he sought to invoke executive privilege against subpoenas from a congressional committee investigating the administration's response to the crisis.

At the time, Navarro defied a congressional subpoena on a similar basis—namely, that Trump himself told him to invoke executive privilege in defiance of the subpoena.

In their own filing, federal prosecutors have sought to dismiss several pieces of evidence as well as most of Navarro's witnesses from consideration, saying many of the documents were largely hearsay and lacked any basis in concrete fact, and there was no compelling argument to be made against the fact Navarro willfully defied a federal subpoena.

Newsweek has contacted the January 6 committee requesting comment.